Chile

Arturo Alessandri's Reformist Presidency, 1920-25

President Arturo Alessandri Palma (1920-24,
March-October 1925,
1932-38) appealed to those who believed the social
question should
be addressed, to those worried by the decline in nitrate
exports
during World War I, and to those weary of presidents
dominated by
Congress. Promising "evolution to avoid revolution," he
pioneered
a new campaign style of appealing directly to the masses
with
florid oratory and charisma. After winning a seat in the
Senate
representing the mining north in 1915, he earned the
sobriquet
"Lion of Tarapacá." As a dissident Liberal running for the
presidency, Alessandri attracted support from the more
reformist
Radicals and Democrats and formed the so-called Liberal
Alliance.
He received strong backing from the middle and working
classes as
well as from the provincial elites. Students and
intellectuals also
rallied to his banner. At the same time, he reassured the
landowners that social reforms would be limited to the
cities.

Alessandri also spoke to discontent stemming from World
War I.
Although Chile had been neutral, the war had disrupted the
international commerce that drove the economy. German
development
of artificial nitrates was especially damaging, and
thereafter
copper would gradually surpass nitrates as the leading
export,
taking over conclusively in the 1930s. Inflation and
currency
depreciation compounded the country's economic woes.

During and after the war, the United States displaced
Britain
as Chile's most important external economic partner, first
in trade
and then in investments. American companies, led by
Kennecott and
Braden, took control of the production of copper and
nitrates. As
corporate investors, bankers, salesmen, advisers, and even
entertainers, such as actor and humorist Will Rogers, came
to
Chile, a few Chileans began to worry about the extent of
United
States penetration.

As the candidate of the Liberal Alliance coalition,
Alessandri
barely won the presidency in 1920 in what was dubbed "the
revolt of
the electorate." Chilean historians consider the 1920 vote
a
benchmark or watershed election, along with the contests
of 1938,
1970, and 1988. Like other reformers elected president in
the
twentieth century--Pedro Aguirre Cerda (1938-41), Gabriel
González
Videla (1946-52), and Salvador Allende Gossens (1970-73)--
Alessandri had to navigate skillfully through treacherous
waters
from the day he was elected until his inauguration,
warding off
attempts to deny him the fruits of victory. Mass street
demonstrations by his middle- and working-class supporters
convinced the conservative political elite in Congress to
ratify
his narrow win.

After donning the presidential sash, Alessandri
discovered that
his efforts to lead would be blocked by the conservative
Congress.
Like Balmaceda, he infuriated the legislators by going
over their
heads to appeal to the voters in the congressional
elections of
1924. His reform legislation was finally rammed through
Congress
under pressure from younger military officers, who were
sick of the
neglect of the armed forces, political infighting, social
unrest,
and galloping inflation.

In a double coup, first military right-wingers opposing
Alessandri seized power in September 1924, and then
reformers in
favor of the ousted president took charge in January 1925.
The
latter group was led by two colonels, Carlos Ibáñez del
Campo and
Marmaduke Grove Vallejo. They returned Alessandri to the
presidency
that March and enacted his promised reforms by decree.
Many of
these reforms were encapsulated in the new constitution of
1925,
which was ratified in a plebiscite.